The Influence of a Mother and a Mother’s Mother and . . .

How much do our mothers influence us? Probably more than we think.

Being a mother is a position of influence in a family, and it is highly significant.

The Apostle Paul had a young apprentice named Timothy. When Paul sent him to the Philippian church, he commended him this way: “I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare” (Phil. 2:21).

Paul taught Timothy and trained him, but Timothy didn’t come out of nowhere. Paul recognized that Timothy was the product of generations: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Tim. 1:5). Sometimes people make a relatively clean break with the past, but in Timothy’s case, he was following the pattern of the generations.

Most of us tend to think of ourselves as our own person following our own ideas and preferences. We give little thought to how we may be following the patterns of the generations. The more I have learned about my family, the more I have realized that many of the patterns of my life are following patterns set by families long gone.

In my case, I am a minister. Now, I have never thought of that choice as coming out of nowhere.

My Father, Sam White, is a minister. Growing up, however, I never, to my knowledge, thought of being a minister. It wasn’t until my sophomore year of college that I thought about going in that direction. I think, though, that because my Dad was a minister, it wasn’t a very big jump for me to think of doing the work of a minister.

This isn’t only due to my Father. My Mother, Muriel, is a deeply spiritual woman who talked to my brother and me regularly about spiritual things.

But it’s not too surprising that my Mother is a spiritual woman. Her Father, my Grandfather, David Livingstone Keith, is a minister as well. My Mother was born in South Africa because her Father was serving there as a minister/missionary.

But it’s not surprising that David Keith was a missionary in South Africa. He was born in Swaziland in the middle of the Republic of South Africa. His parents, Clarence Keith and Roberta McMillan Keith, had left their homes in southern Indiana and gone there in the 1920s as part of the wave of Methodist missionaries that went to South Africa at the turn of the 19th to 20th century.

In 2014, I went to a family reunion with 100 of the descendants of Clarence and Roberta. I was shocked at how alive faith was throughout the family. But really, this is not surprising since all three of their sons served as ministers and three of their five daughters married ministers!

Until this year, I would have considered this strong faith connection as being due to Clarence, and Clarence was a great man whom I admire deeply. However, I now tend to think of Roberta being the major conduit.

Here’s why. I’ve done a bit of family research this year and realized that this is the line of the ministers. Roberta had a brother who was a minister. His name was Vincent, and he served as a chaplain at the Battle of Anzio (among other places of ministry).

It’s not surprising that Roberta and Vincent were both involved in ministry. Their father, Clyde McMillan, was a minister. However, I think the influence was probably more from their Mother, Florence Maupin McMillan. She was the daughter of William Maupin who was a Methodist minister.

On the other hand, it also may have come from their Grandmother, Margaret Willey McMillan. According to one of my cousins, she always wanted her son to be a minister and promoted him heavily when Clyde was a minister. She was probably inspired this way because her Father, Dennis Willey, was a Methodist minister.

How did Dennis Willey get inspired to become a minister? I don’t know the story, but I do know that his Father, Barzillai Willey, was a minister as well.

How far back is that? That’s 8 generations from me. Barzillai was not only a minister. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War.

Wes White as a minister? It hardly seems surprising, does it?

200 years from now, will a descendant of mine say, “I am a minister, but this goes back to my 5th great grandfather, John Wesley White, who was a Presbyterian minister”?